On Sunday we participated in a stimulating, intimate talk by Brooke Summers-Perry, Director of Curriculum and McMillan Institute Associate at the Jung Center.

Brooke’s slide charts made vivid her analyses of the barriers to intimacy we all create from our most vulnerable places. These thought barriers she calls “lenses” and notes we all have many, some rooted in childhood and others in negative experiences not yet processed with clarity. Imagine looking through a rainbow of lenses which variously distorts everyone we encounter, while simultaneously they view us through their own unique set of distortions. With all these lenses between us, Brooke emphasized the difficulty in seeing each other clearly, let alone ourselves!

Generously, Brooke offered details of her personal journey to quelling inner voices which prevented intimacy and true communication with her father and daughter. She invited us to imagine a life free of suffering caused by our assumptions, judgements, and comparisons. She urged us to practice “benign regret,” a longing to smooth the way for those around us by objectively seeing where we rankled or misjudged others in the past. To date, we might have held a fictional account based on our lenses bias. How might we rewrite this encounter now as non-fiction? See and name the distortions and the reality.

Brooke offered techniques for achieving clarity in any new transaction, beginning with taking a purposeful pause while examining one’s own immediate reaction. Asking why am I reacting this way? What are the objective facts (minus my lenses) of what just transpired? How can I deal with this event kindly while I sort it out? Importantly, she urged us to develop and nurture a strong sense of curiosity about where our personal fictions lie and to encounter them with courage—and humor!

Many thanks to Brooke for this adventure in psychology and spirituality.

In order to download or to listen to the audio recording of her talk, you can click on the audio player below.

Click HERE to listen on Apple Podcast

To watch the video of today’s talk, use the YouTube link below.

Download her Power Point Slides |